First Stirring Of Unity

At this juncture, the British Board of Trade, hearing reports
of deteriorating relations with the Indians, ordered the governor
of New York and commissioners from the other colonies to call
a meeting of the Iroquois chiefs to frame a joint treaty. In June
1754, representatives of New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and
the New England colonies met with the Iroquois at Albany. The
Indians aired their grievances, and the delegates recommended
appropriate action.

The
Albany Congress, however, transcended its original
purpose of solving Indian problems. It declared a union of the
American colonies "absolutely necessary for their preservation,"
and the colonial representatives present adopted the
Albany Plan of Union. Drafted by Benjamin Franklin,
the plan provided that
a president appointed by the King act with a grand council of
delegates chosen by the assemblies, each colony to be represented
in proportion to its financial contributions to the general treasury.
The government was to have charge of all British interests in the
west - Indian treaties, trade, defense, and settlement. But none of
the colonies accepted Franklin's plan, for none wished to
surrender either the power of taxation or control over the
development of the west.

The colonies offered little support for the war as a whole,
all schemes failing to bring them "to a sense of their duty to the
King." The colonists could see the war only as a struggle for
empire on the part of England and France. They felt no
compunction when the British government was obliged to send large
numbers of regular troops to wage colonial battles. Nor did they
regret that the "redcoats," rather than provincial troops, won the
war. Nor did they see any reason for curtailing commerce that, in
effect, constituted "trade with the enemy.

In spite of this lack of wholehearted colonial support and in
spite of several early military defeats, England's superior strategic
position and her competent leadership ultimately brought
complete victory. After eight years of
conflict, Canada and the upper
Mississippi Valley were finally conquered, and the dream of a
French empire in North America faded.

Having triumphed over France, not only in America but in
India and throughout the colonial world generally, Britain was
compelled to face a problem that she had hitherto neglected - the
governance of her empire. It was essential that she now organize
her vast possessions to facilitate defense, reconcile the divergent
interests of different areas and peoples, and distribute more evenly
the cost of imperial administration.

In North America alone, British overseas territories had more
than doubled. To the narrow strip along the Atlantic coast had
been added the vast expanse of Canada and the territory between
the Mississippi River and the Alleghenies, an empire in itself. A
population that had been predominantly Protestant English and
Anglicized continentals now included Catholic French and large
numbers of partly Christianized Indians. Defense and
administration of the new territories, as well as the old, would require huge
sums of money and increased personnel. The "old colonial
system" was obviously inadequate. Even during the exigencies of
a war imperiling the very existence of the colonists themselves,
the system had proved incapable of securing colonial cooperation
or support. What then could be expected in time of peace when
no external danger loomed?